Rajarata University of Sri Lanka Third Year Semester-1

Rajarata University of Sri Lanka

Department of Languages

Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities

Online Lectures

Year and Semester	Year-3 Semester-1
Subject	History of English Language
Subject Code	ENGL 3112
Course Unit	Scandinavian and Greek Influence on Old English
Date	08.05.2020/09.05.2020
Time	Theory (9.00 am-10.00 pm)  Practical (4.30 pm-5.30 pm)
Lecturer	D.N. Aloysius
Theory Hours	02                                            Total  No of  Hours: 04
Practical Hours	02                                            Total  No of  Hours: 04

Scandinavian Influence on Old English

During the 05^th century AD, three Germanic tribes, Angles, Saxons and Jutes invaded Britainwith their knowledge of building ships and their skills of navigation. Subsequently, the Danes, Norwegians and Swedes, who were collectively known as Vikings, arrived in Britain. The English language over the ages came into contact with different speech communities such as Celtic, Latin, Greek and Scandinavian. Accordingly, during the first seven hundred years of the existence of language, three major influences on its development can be observed. First, English had the contact with Celtic and then with the Roman and eventually the Scandinavian.

Apart from Greek and Latin, only Scandinavian language made substantial contribution to the English vocabulary during the Anglo Saxon period. The contribution of Celtic language was really much less during this period. The Scandinavian colonization of the British Isles had a considerable impact on the English language and its vocabulary and culture. Enormous similarity is found between these two languages, i. e. English and Scandinavian, in nouns like ‘man’, ‘wife’, ‘father’, ‘folk’, ‘mother’, ‘house’, ‘life’, ‘winter’, ‘summer’; verbs like ‘like’, ‘will’, ‘can’, ‘meet’, ‘come’, ‘bring’, ‘hear’, ‘see’, ‘think’, ‘smile’, ‘ride’, ‘spin’; and adjectives and adverbs like ‘full’, ‘wise’, ‘better’, ‘best’, ‘mine’, ‘over’ and ‘under’. Due to the Scandinavian influence, there exist a large number of places that bear Scandinavian names. More than 600 place names in English are ending in ‘by’ Numerous examples can be cited in support of this fact. Grimsby, Whitby, Derby and Rugby are some of them. Althorp, Bishopsthorpe and Linthrope consist of the Scandinavian word ‘thorp’, which means village. An isolated block of land in Scandinavian was called ‘thwaite’.   We find such endings in Applethwaite and Braithwaite. They are considered place names. There is another Scandinavian word, ‘toft’, which means a piece of ground, e.g. Brimtoft, Eastoft and Nortoft ending in ‘toft’. We also find a number of words relating to law or social and administrative system entering in the English language. The word, ‘law’ itself is of Scandinavian origin and the words such as ‘nioing’ (criminal), ‘mall’ (action of law), ‘wapentake’ (an administrative district), ‘husting’ (assembly), ‘stefnan’ (summon) are in this category. After the Scandinavians had steadily settled down in England, a number of Scandinavian words acquired to the English vocabulary were much higher. We also find some other common words in English that owe their origin to the  Scandinavian  such as ‘bank’, ‘birth’, ‘bull’, ‘dirt’, ‘egg’, ‘gap’, ‘kid’, ‘link’, ‘race’, ‘skirt’, ‘sister’, ‘window’, ‘low’, ‘meek’, ‘rotten’, ‘shy’, ‘tight’, ‘weak’, ‘bait’, ‘crawl’, ‘dig’, ‘gape’, ‘kindle’, ‘lift’, ‘screech’, ‘thrust’, ‘they’, ‘their’, ‘then’, ‘aloft’, ‘athwart’ and many more. In respect of grammar, many of the pronominal forms like ‘they’, ‘them’, ‘their’ etc., are of the Scandinavian origin. The use of ‘shall’ and ’will’ and the prepositional use of ‘to’, ‘till’, ‘fro’ are acquired due to Scandinavian influence.

Greek influence on Old English

Ancient Greek is alien to most modern English speakers, but it remains a foundational source of their language. Modern English is complex and varied due to the influence of other languages including Greek. Old English was, thus, well-shaped by its own considerable inheritance from Greek.

Greek alphabet was the greatest gift that Old English had inherited from Greek. It is also found that many letters in English have been borrowed from ancient Greek, for instance, the English letters “a” and “b” are variations on the Greek letters “alpha” and “beta."

Greek alphabet

Greek			Phoenician		English
letter		ancient	modern	spelling
Α	aleph	alpʰa	ˈalfa	ἄλφα		alpha
Β	beth	bɛːta	ˈvita	βῆτα		beta
Γ	gimel	gamma	ˈɣama	γάμμα		gamma
Δ	daleth	delta	ˈðelta	δέλτα		delta
Η	heth	hɛːta, ɛːta	ˈita	ἦτα		eta
Θ	teth	tʰɛːta	ˈθita	θῆτα		theta
Ι	yodh	iɔːta	ˈjota	ἰῶτα		iota
Κ	kaph	kappa	ˈkapa	κάππα		kappa
Λ	lamedh	lambda	ˈlamða	λάμβδα		lambda
Μ	mem	myː	mi	μῦ		mu
Ν	nun	nyː	ni	νῦ		nu
Ρ	reš	rɔː	ro	ῥῶ		rho
Τ	taw	tau	taf	ταῦ		tau

It has been found that some English words originated directly from Greek or borrowed from other languages like Latin, French or German, which were believed to be formed out of the various elements of common Greek words. The influence of Greek vocabulary on English is most obvious in the fields of technical and academic language. ‘Diagnosis’, ‘analysis’, ‘synthesis’ and ‘antithesis’ derived from some Greek words. Moreover, the names of academic disciplines are often formed by combining the Greek word “logos” with another Greek word. “Logos” means “speech” or “thought” and, in this context, it means the study of something. For instance, ‘geology’ combines “geo," the Greek word for Earth, with “logos” to mean the ‘study of the Earth’.

Greek heavily influenced Latin, which was the dominant language of cultural exchange in Europe for centuries. Approximately, majority of English words come from Latin and a substantial portion of those have their ultimate origin in Greek. Much of what English has borrowed from French and German also came from Greek through of Latin. According to "Lingua Franca", the biannual newsletter of the foreign language department at Salem State University, “village," "magnify," “bonus" and “fame” are all words that Latin borrowed from Greek and that English subsequently borrowed from Latin.

English grammar is heavily influenced by Greek and even the term “grammar” originated from Greek. It is also found that the most elemental grammatical concepts in English like noun, subject, predicate, adjective, preposition and pronoun are also found to be basic to Greek. The word, “democracy" dates back to ancient Greece. Also, many conjugations of the word “auto” are all originally Greek: “autocracy,” “autonomy,” “autobiography” and “autograph” are easily recognizable examples.

 Practical: Write short notes on Scandinavian and Greek Influence on Old English.

References:

1.      A History of the English Language by Albert C. Baugh           

2. Old English: A Historical Linguistic Companion by Roger Lass